


Convicts

by MotherofDucklings, pomegrenadier



Series: No Darker Than Yours [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: Angst, Cyborgs, Fluff, Force cults are not good at mental health and trauma recovery news at 11, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Torture, Male-Female Friendship, PTSD, sith pureblood jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-04 23:49:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10292693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MotherofDucklings/pseuds/MotherofDucklings, https://archiveofourown.org/users/pomegrenadier/pseuds/pomegrenadier
Summary: Former Republic heroes cross paths at the heart of the Empire.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trying something new-old-new for the formatting--this is pretty much a straight transcription of the original RP. MotherofDucklings wrote Ravaszhi, pomegrenadier wrote Crayce; line breaks indicate a switch between the two POVs.

_**BALMORRA, YEARS AGO . . .** _

Crayce sets the toolbox down as gently as she can. It still clanks and clatters loudly, and the noise echoes around the cavern the Resistance has turned into a halfway functional base. She and the rest of Havoc are supposed to make it _fully_ functional.

This generator, however, is not cooperating. She kneels beside it, pries open the back panel to see what the hell is wrong with its innards, and stares at the mess of wires with a sinking feeling.

"Are you all right, sir?" Dorne calls from an adjoining room, where she's setting up the kolto tanks for the medstation.

"Peachy," says Crayce. She gropes around in the toolbox for a spanner and pokes at the wires. They don't make any more sense with a tool in hand. Crap.

* * *

The resistance fighter who met Ravaszhi and escorted him to the base comes to a stop behind the soldier and stands formally with their hands crossed behind their back.  "Excuse me, sir," they say, "but the help the Jedi Council have been promising is here."

There's an unmistakable note of irony in their voice, and Ravaszhi senses . . . frustration, tied up in fatigue and resignation and a knot of other emotions Ravaszhi doesn't have the mastery to pick out.  But mostly frustration.

They were probably expecting a Master-Padawan pair.

Ravaszhi centers himself and puts that aside, bowing to who he assume to be the resistance fighter's superior.  "Padawan Ravaszhi of the Jedi Order, at your service."  Soon.  The Order would find him a Master soon.  "I understand your operation is having mechanical trouble?"

* * *

Crayce huffs in frustration at the generator and stands up, flipping the spanner into a reverse grip like it's a knife. She eyes the Jedi for a minute—Sith? That's a new one, but then, so was Dorne—then says, "Commander Serrin Crayce, Havoc Squad. _Please_ tell me you're good with machines. This thing is giving me hell."

* * *

Ravaszhi looks up at the generator.  He's never seen technology so old, before, but he does have an affinity for machines.  It's why he was sent.  "I'll do everything I can, Commander. Sometimes generators take a while to get used to me, but as long as none of the parts need to be replaced . . ."

He stretches out his hand for focus, reaching for the generator in the Force.  It weighs in his senses as heavily as the stone cavern, stubbornly inert. He lays his palm against the casing and listens, letting the Force guide him.

The thing makes a rumbling whine, not quite a start-up purr but definitely not a dying cough, either.

Oh. He looks up at the Commander. "Do you have any generator oil?"

* * *

Crayce blinks. "Uh. Yeah, we should . . . one sec—" She hunts around for the supply crates that arrived just this morning and dives in. Unidentifiable parts, a whole lot of building materials—who fucking packed this shit, it's a mess, and apparently taking inventory wasn't on anyone's to-do list either so _that's_ a whole 'nother heap of fun to look forward to—there.

She retrieves the canister, drags it out from underneath way too much _stuff_ , and lugs it back to Ravaszhi. "Will this work?"

* * *

Pan grease would probably _work_ , but that might just irritate the generator in the long run.  It used to be a fighter, after all.  "This will be perfect, Commander, thank you." Ravaszhi takes off his leather vambraces, slicks his hands, and reaches up into the compartment. "Your generator had a past life as an All Terrain Assault Vehicle." The Force allows him to keep all the little parts in place while he works, and the oil lets him slip his hands through the gears and into the wiring where he needs to go.  "It seems like it was incorrectly re-wired when it made the transition." 

In a few short minutes, Ravaszhi can feel the problem dissolve.

He stands up as the generator comes to life with a heavy _chuff_ ing noise, and smiles. "How else can I help you, Commander?" he asks it as he starts arranging the scattered materials from the supply crates with the Force. He hadn't realized the operation—whatever it is, he hasn't exactly been told—was so . . . new? "Or should I report to your personnel officer?"

* * *

Crayce grins at him. "We got some medical machinery in back that needs setup, if you're up for it. Thanks, by the way. You just saved me a headache and a half. They train you to be a grease monkey in addition to all the Force stuff? 'Cause that was damn impressive."

* * *

Ravaszhi returns the smile quizzically.  He'd only done what he was sent for.  "I'm . . . not actually a trained mechanic, no," he says aloud.  He isn't really sure how to describe what he does in terms that would resonate with a non-Sensitive, either. It's not . . . _exactly_ telekinesis, even though moving the tiny parts the way they need to be moved has forced him to learn it as a complementary skill. "Sometimes I can sense what's wrong with machines," he says with a shrug, after a moment.

He's been called _gifted,_ but it's not a word Jedi should use to describe themselves.

* * *

"Sounds handy," Crayce says lightly. She's not an expert on the Jedi or anything, but they tend to get weird about compliments, so she lets it go. She tilts her head towards the soon-to-be-medbay. "Shall we? My XO's in charge of keeping us all from dying and it's our job to make that as easy on her as possible."

* * *

Ravaszhi stretches his senses through the base before responding. Nothing flares with emergency, so it's probably not the gallows humor special military units tend to have. Ravaszhi looks at the unit insignia on Commander Crayce's armor and wonders—

Ravaszhi dismisses the thought. It's duty, not an adventure; if he were supposed to know he would've been briefed. He didn't come here for war stories.

"By all means," he says politely. "Do you have a doctor on staff, or is your med-bay droid run?"

* * *

Crayce leads the way across the main room. "On staff. Just so you know, Lieutenant Dorne is former Imperial, but she doesn't bite, promise. Hey, Dorne, our Jedi friend showed up!"

They enter the medbay just as Elara finishes dragging an empty kolto tank into the corner. Breathing hard, she turns to them. She freezes, staring at Ravaszhi. "Sir," she says stiffly. Then: "My lo—Master Jedi."

Crap. _Crap_. She's a fucking idiot. "Lieutenant Dorne, Jedi Ravaszhi. Ravaszhi, Elara Dorne. The cavalry has arrived and he already got that generator working. What can we do in here?"

Dorne hesitates, then says, "If you could help assemble the monitor arrays, perhaps . . .?"

* * *

Lieutenant Dorne's unease isn't exactly new for Ravaszhi, since most of the soldiers he's met have never really interacted with the Order, but this is . . . different.  She's looking at _him_ , not at his Padawan braid.

If she used to be Imperial, the last Force wielders she worked with may have been . . . Sith.

That would leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth. Ravaszhi hopes he can leave a good impression of Jedi.

"Please, I'm not actually a Master," he says with a small smile, and doesn't let himself dwell on it too much.  Jedi were coming home to Tython from the war fronts all the time.  One of them would take him, eventually. "It's just Ravaszhi. Are you having any particular trouble with the monitors?"

* * *

". . . Ravaszhi, then. Understood," Dorne says after a minute. She shakes herself a little, then says, "No significant difficulty, but it will speed our progress considerably. And since most of our equipment is secondhand or salvaged . . ."

"It's probably gonna take some fiddling to get it working," Crayce finishes. "C'mon. Let's get this shit hooked up."

They settle in, one person holding pieces in place while another solders, screws, or fastens them. This, at least, is more her element—she's no electrical engineer, but data stations are more or less just really big datapads with more processing power and more shit to connect with. Generators? Nope. Datapads? Sure.

* * *

It's fairly easy work—a bit tedious, maybe, but there aren't enough distractions for holding a monitor while levitating the the bolts and fasteners into place to be an issue. Ravaszhi wouldn't think second hand or salvaged materials would be the order of the day for a new installation, but he wouldn't have picked a cave system for a garrison, either. As a forward operating base, though . . . or a bombardment shelter?

Eventually, his curiosity gets the better of him.

It's part of the Code, isn't it? There is no ignorance? It can't hurt to _ask_. "Are you expecting a lot of combat traffic through your med-bay?"

* * *

"Probably," says Crayce, head and shoulders stuffed into the side of the monitoring station. "Resistance takes a lot of casualties. They need a secure base to work out of, and a good medical facility to deal with their wounded."

"One of our goals here is to give them a solid footing in the area," Dorne adds. "I'll be instructing locals in field medicine and triage while the rest of Havoc Squad trains them in more direct combat techniques and tactics."

Crayce extricates herself and sits back. "Whew. Yeah, that's about it. So, uh, how long are you here for? 'Cause if there's time, I guarantee there'll be people who wanna learn anything you can teach 'em about keeping this place running."

* * *

How long . . .? The Commander probably has more important things to do than be briefed on every new arrival, though. "A week, unless something changes," Ravaszhi says, biting his tongue on how more than happy he would be to stay, to help. "I'm fluent in binary," he offers, "but I can't actually teach what I do with machines. If any of the soldiers want a Force-wielder to train with, though . . .?"

Crayce smiles. "Plenty of time. And we can work out a fancy syllabus later—long as you're willing to help, there'll be something that needs doing."

**o.O.o**


	2. Chapter 2

**_DROMUND KAAS, PRESENT DAY . . ._ **

Ravaszhi slows to a stop on the trail back to Kaas City as he senses another being. Not a Sith, but the faint prickle of _threat_ is there all the same. His Master has gone silent, and there's nothing but yawning _emptiness_ where his voice had been just a few hours . . . days . . .?

Ravaszhi passes a hand over his eyes. He's tired, disoriented, and probably smells like the Dark Temple. He wants to go back to his rooms and sleep, or at least drink until he can't see.

Instead he unclips his lightsaber, squares his shoulders, keeps walking. They're not Sith, at least, whatever they are.

* * *

It's been hours, and Crayce has finally reached the point of physical exhaustion. Apparently slogging through mud does wonders for increasing the difficulty of a very level trail. She's sweaty, sticky from the humidity and the insect repellent, and generally disgusting, but at least she fucking earned it.

Breathing hard—yay—she slows to a walk and locks her interlaced fingers behind her head. Then she frowns as her cybernetic eye picks up humanoid life signs up ahead. Who the hell . . .?

She keeps walking. It's probably nothing. And if it's not nothing, she'll deal.

* * *

Ravaszhi is too tired to even be disappointed when the sentient comes into view and turns out to be human. Most people are, these days, after all.

Not dressed for battle, though, and since they're not Sith . . . there's no social protocol that demands he speak to them. Safe enough to ignore, then. _Thank the Force._ He changes his course just enough to give them room on the trail, and keeps walking.

The city is so close that he can practically hear it.

* * *

 Crayce's frown deepens. Sith. Great. But he shifts sideways a little, enough to let her pass, and that's . . . not what Sith usually do. Usually it's the Force-null nobody who has to get the hell out of the way.

She's all set to just shrug and move on when she draws level with the Sith and risks glancing at his face. And it's—she knows him. She _knows_ him.

She stops dead and lets her hands drop to her sides, turning to stare as he continues walking. "Ravaszhi?" she says.

* * *

 Ravaszhi freezes. He hasn't heard an accent like—

And then forces himself to relax, because body language is a dead giveaway and there's nothing to say this isn't some kind of trap. There are plenty who don't know who he was, what he was, plenty who would love to use his past to tear him from his Master or worse.

Ravaszhi turns, just slightly.

He doesn't know her.

But he senses . . . Ravaszhi searches his feelings, comes up just as tired and disoriented and _tired_ , dear Force, all he wants is a long drink of something sweet and cold and hallucinogenic so that he can fall asleep to the sound of his Master's voice.

But, trap.  "Have we met?"

* * *

 She winces a little. Of course he wouldn't recognize her, after . . . but hey, least she wasn't imagining things. "Yeah, uh, actually we have," she says. "Balmorra, few years back—" She breaks off. Shit. What if he—but he's on Dromund Kaas. In dark robes.

He's not a Jedi anymore.

She exhales. Kid looks miserable, and it's not like she hasn't done stupider things for less reason. "Serrin Crayce. Former CO of Havoc Squad. We worked together to set up a Resistance base."

* * *

 Ravaszhi cocks his head. She didn't react to the Old Sith accent, which . . . may actually mean nothing, if she really had been Havoc Squad. Special Operations use false accents all the time. But the only time he'd ever been to Balmorra was with the regular infantry, he'd never met an Havoc operative in person, and he would remember if he had met her in the Empire.

Probably.

And none of that explained what she was doing on Dromund Kaas if any of her introduction had been true. 

"You're mistaken," Ravaszhi says finally, and turns to leave. "Good hunting, Serrin Crayce."

* * *

 "Nuh-uh," Crayce says, skipping after him. "No way. Been a while and my brain's a little scrambled but I fuckin' remember you. Great with machines, the only Pureblood Jedi I've ever met, yellow lightsaber—look, you don't have to act all Sithy, there's literally _nobody here_. 'Less you're worried about the bugs being bugged. In which case I'm pretty fucked myself."

* * *

 Ravaszhi's senses scream.

Iron and char and deck-grade antiseptics crowd his sinuses, and acid claws up his throat.  He forces his dominant into a fist, away from his lightsaber, ignores the bite of his claws.  

 _Pureblood Jedi_. Of course people like him had been a rarity in the Republic, and anybody could have told her that he had always had an affinity for machines, but yellow— no one knew—  

Sweat beads on Ravaszhi's temples. The last time he had seen that lightsaber had been during the _Esseles_. No one could have possibly told her about it, unless . . . if he'd met her before, but— but Ravaszhi can barely remember anything from before then. 

"What—" his voice comes out raspy and weak. The color is bleeding out of the edges of his vision, and he clutches at the Force to steady himself. "—what did I look like? Can you picture it?"

* * *

 Crayce takes an abortive step forward. What _happened_ to this kid? She swallows, and stays put. Probably shouldn't crowd him right now. "Perky little ponytail," she says, keeping her voice light and easy. "Long Jedi braid thingie. Uh. You wore these rings on your brow ridges, little gold ones . . ."

* * *

 Ravaszhi searches her expression, searches the Force and gets—

Not enough.

Not anything trustworthy.

There's— there's just one way to know. Ravaszhi reaches out to Crayce, and gives her mind the very gentlest tap. "May I?"

* * *

 She's been mind-tricked before. Or, well, Jedi have _tried_ to mind-trick her. Didn't work out so well for them. And Ravaszhi isn't . . . if he's still anything like the person she knew, he'd never try to pull that.

"Go for it," she says.

* * *

 Ravaszhi walls his mind off, first, separating the churning emotion away so that it won't bleed over.  Then he stretches out his right hand for focus, curling his thumb and pinky finger in when his arm starts to shake with the strain.

Her mind is _strong_.

Had he read somewhere that Havoc operatives were trained to resist mental tampering?

And then he's past and through and looking straight into the eyes of—

And it's hazy, hazy as any years-old memory ought to be but— those are _his_ _hands,_ his face and his eyestalk rings and his  _padawan braid_ , and...and his yellow lighstaber. He'd built it himself; he'd know that hilt anywhere.

He also has bone spurs growing out of his elbows, and Ravaszhi doesn't...he doesn't remember them, but all his senses and feelings are screaming _yes_.  He covers the spot on his sleeve where his arm is scarred, fat and pale and round, and suddenly all too much like a pruned tree limb.

Ravaszhi's stomach lurches as he pulls away from Crayce.  He drags his Focus inward, following the howling sense of _yes, this, truth_ , until the jungle tunnels around him and the Force roars against his eardrums and all he can see is the faceless helmet of an Imperial prison guard bearing down on him, vibro-secateurs shearing through his elbow while he screams for mercy. 

Ravaszhi claps a hand to his mouth, not sure if he's going to vomit or sob as the grey spots swallow his vision.

* * *

 "Dammit—" Crayce lurches forward and catches him, mud slopping up around her ankles and sucking at Ravaszhi's robes. She scowls and scoops him up, taking his full weight in her arms. The servos in her knees whirr softly. She stomps a ways off the path, to a grass-covered area that's a little drier, and sets him down with his back to a nice, solid tree.

One of his hands flops free, palm-up on the ground. She stares at it for a minute. Four fingers. Nasty scar down the center of his palm. Fucking hell. Her own metal hand curls into a fist at her side, and she tastes bile.

"You've been through some shit," she murmurs, rubbing the sweat from her forehead with the back of her flesh hand.

* * *

 Ravaszhi blinks, disoriented and nauseous, finds himself . . . on the ground, with a strange human hovering over him.

He is reaching through the Force for the prosthetics in her joints, just enough to disable, when he remembers, and groans, and puts his face in his hand. "Did I faint?"

* * *

 "Yeah," says Crayce. She lowers herself to the ground beside him, crosses her legs, and looks straight ahead. She can still see him, courtesy of her eye's fancy expanded peripheral vision, but she's guessing he doesn't want to be stared at right now. "Welcome back to the land of the muddy. Thirsty?" She pulls her canteen from her belt and sloshes it a little, holding it out to him. "It's just water. Don't usually go jogging drunk; I hear that's bad for you."

* * *

 Ravaszhi laughs, and then chokes on a sob. His shoulders tense, skin burning with shame as he fights the urge to just fold over around his knees and start screaming.

When has fighting it ever helped. Ravaszhi grasps it tight instead— the humiliation, the grief— feeds it into the Force and refuses to flinch when his skin crawls.

He breathes hard for just a moment longer, and then accepts the canteen. "Thank you, Serrin." He takes a short drink without touching the container to his mouth and hands it back. "I really wish I could remember you."

* * *

 Crayce frowns again. Yeah. _Bad_ shit. She takes a breath, lets it out slow. "Glad to help. And it's okay, kid. I'm guessing some stuff went down. Not a whole lot you can do about it, y'know?" She leans forward, rests her elbows on her knees, keeps her focus on the damp grass in front of her. Then she grimaces and sits back again. Prosthetic elbow's fine, other one is _not_ happy getting ground into metal joints.

She shakes her head. "You feeling any better?"

* * *

 "Yes, thank you." Ravaszhi looks at her, racking his brain for any semblance of a memory.

There's nothing.

He casts a soft barrier around them, strong enough to deaden their words from anyone else about. "I didn't think I ever left my creche world before taking my trials. You said we met on Balmorra?"

* * *

 ". . . Yeah," Crayce says. What happened to him? What the _fuck_ happened to him? "You must've been sixteen or so. We—Havoc Squad, Republic Special Forces—we were assigned to help a Resistance cell establish a solid footing in the Gorinth Canyon area. Lotta caves to hole up in, but not much decent gear to work with. Whole place was running on caf, spite, and adhesive tape. You were a fuckin' miracle worker with the machinery."

* * *

 Ravaszhi's skin heats up again, but this time he's just flustered. "Thank you. It's . . . " Saying _genetic_ would open the door to conversations he isn't remotely prepared for. He shouldn't have said anything, as usual. ". . . a gift I've always had."

He fusses with his ponytail self-consciously, trying to think of a safe topic of conversation for a stranger that he apparently knows. Knew. "Undercover?"

* * *

 Crayce bursts out laughing, ugly and harsh, head thrown back. She drags her flesh hand down the less-damaged side of her face and covers her mouth with it, still wheezing. "Sorry," she manages. "Wow. Whee. Yeah, no, I'm . . . kind of on the Republic's most wanted list."

She pulls herself together, coughs. "Workin' as a mercenary now. Shit job, shittier pay, but at least I get to be a little picky about my employers."

* * *

 Ravaszhi's eyes widen, but then he schools his expression into something less . . .

Well, something _less_.

His mouth _almost_ twitches. What are the odds? "I don't suppose you made a call that went over badly." Although that's putting it far too kindly, in his case.

* * *

 "Heh." She looks at him sidelong, pulling a humorless grin that stretches at her scars. "Turns out getting into a semi-public screaming match about ethical treatment of prisoners with your CO and the wardens of a planetary black site doesn't go over very well at _all_."

And, well. He did ask, so . . . "How about you?"

* * *

 Ravaszhi twitches. How many planetary black sites could the Republic possibly have? "Belsavis . . .?"

* * *

 Crayce stills, and faces him fully. "Yeah." Did he . . .? Oh, _fuck_ , did they—?

* * *

 He offers a very tentative smile, that he hopes looks as understanding as he means. "Jedi mental ward."

* * *

 Oh, boy. "HighSec research labs," she says, game face back on. "How'd you get out?"

* * *

 Ravaszhi isn't exactly sure how well a "Force hug" would be received. Most of the soldiers he's met are highly physical but extremely guarded with their emotions. If she . . . went through anything like he did on Kilran's warship, a hug might be just as bad.

He does neither. "I've only heard rumors about those. My biological family found out and came after me. You?"

* * *

 ". . . I'm glad someone came for you," she says. She sighs, pulls her hair out of its tie, and scrapes the whole stringy mess back into something approaching order before twisting the elastic band back into place. Gives her a few seconds to come up with a description that isn't too . . . weighty. Or whatever.

Crayce grimaces. Yeah, good fucking luck. "Rumors probably aren't too far off the mark. The researchers were idiots, though, so we kinda staged a great big messy explosive escape, killed most of 'em, and stole the Director's ship to get off-world. It was pretty satisfying."

* * *

 Ravaszhi takes in her implants and prosthetics for half a second and doesn't ask. She didn't exactly react to him not remembering her, after all. "Did you kill the Director?"

* * *

 Crayce grins again. "Oh, yeah." It wasn't as slow as she'd hoped, since they were in a little bit of a rush, but it sure as hell was _agonizingly painful_. "So here we are. Couple of escaped convicts, sittin' in the mud. Wait, do we actually count as _convicts_ if we never went to trial and got convicted? Did _you_ go to trial? Fuck. My whole identity's in jeopardy, here, this is terrible . . ."

* * *

 Ravaszhi laughs, or tries to, but all the energy goes out of him and he finds himself grimacing on an exhale. "I never went to trial. The Senate tried, but the Order protected me long enough to expel me."

* * *

 "Aw, that's so _nice_ of them," Crayce jeers. "Not only did they take your freedom, they took your right to the snappiest word for _prisoner_. Ugh." She throws up her hands, leans back against the tree beside him.

* * *

 After a moment, Ravaszhi says, "I'm glad you got him. I hope the Director knew it was you."

* * *

 "Yeah. He knew." She rolls her head sideways. "So how'd the whole family reunion thing go? If it's okay to ask, I mean."

* * *

 "Uh." Ravaszhi looks at his hands. "It . . . they're very good to me." He winces at how it sounds, but—

Jedi don't have _families_. He'd had no idea what to do with _family_ , and he still isn't sure how how to act around his father, for all Lord Dzwoyat-chul has been nothing but kind and gracious to him. His Master, on the other hand—his Master is everything to him. "I didn't know they existed when I was a Jedi."

* * *

 ". . . That's fucked up," says Crayce. She doesn't want to make assumptions but there's something seriously off about Ravaszhi's reaction and it's making her twitchy. She follows his gaze and purses her lips. _Did they do that to you?_ "You ever get phantom pain?" she asks instead, nodding at his hands.

* * *

 His eyes widen again, and he looks back at his hands. "No." Not after learning to hold a lightsaber again. Darth Ikoral's weaponsmasters had been very thorough. "Is that . . . normal?"

* * *

 She winces. "Just a— a thing. Glad you dodged that particular bullet, anyway. It's annoying as hell." She wants, more than anything else, to ask— _what happened to you, are they hurting you, do I need to take a pro bono no-survivors non-contract on anyone . . .?_

Well. She can make the offer, at least. "Look, I know we don't really know each other, but if you ever need anything, if you ever need anyone dealt with . . . I'm pretty damn good at _dealing with_ people who think they're invincible." Blunt, yeah, but since when has she ever gone for the delicate approach?

* * *

 Ravaszhi lets out a long breath, and realizes that he's smiling. "Thank you."  If he ever managed to remember any names, he might even take her up on it.

Vokk's dead, at least. He remembers the star-bright green of Kira's lightsaber protruding through his chest and carving straight up through his scalp, and then nothing for . . . months, maybe, aside from a few disjointed impressions. Doc.

The Imperials, though . . . maybe he'll start looking. He has time, and not much to do with it.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

* * *

 "I'd love—" Crayce breaks off, glances down at her mud- and grass-stained running clothes, and heaves a sigh. "Can I shower first? And put on, y'know. Real clothes? 'Cause I don't know about you, but I have a _reputation_ to uphold and this gorgeous getup won't do it any favors." She flicks a piece of dead leaf off her pants for emphasis. "People might start thinking I'm actually human. Totally unacceptable."

* * *

 He—has never heard a human make that sort of joke before, and Ravaszhi isn't sure whether it's appropriate to laugh or not. "Of course."

None of the cantinas on the surface level of Dromund Kaas would say anything to someone like him— nice for a change, honestly— but Ravaszhi does still smell like thousand-year-old temple dust and a shower would probably make him feel better. "Would you like me to meet you, or send a skycab . . .?"

* * *

 "You got a place in mind? Not real familiar with the local watering holes, but—yeah, we can meet up somewhere."

* * *

 "Purity," Ravaszhi says. "By the artificers' district."

It had been the name that had attracted him to it in the first place, but the word meant something else on a Sith holy world and Imperial Capital.  It's yet another iteration of the endless mental dissonance that comes with his species being both privileged and exoticized in the Empire, but- it's _for_ him. 

There's no such place in the Republic as a bar that assumes a client base made up of his species.

* * *

 "Got it. Wanna shoot for 1900 hours?

* * *

 "1900 hours." Ravaszhi stands, and offers Serrin a hand up.

* * *

 She takes it, but tries not to put her full weight on him as she hauls herself to her feet. Crayce smiles a little. "It's a date." And then her face falls. "Shit, that came out wrong. Uh."

* * *

 Ravaszhi shrugs it off, trying to play down his sudden discomfort.  "By the time we got through all the legal contracts involved in a Dzwoyat-chul courtship our drinks would've gone bad, anyway."

And he's _joking_ , but only because it's true.

* * *

 "What the fuck," Crayce says, shaking her head. "Okay. Purity, 1900. No mud. How upscale is this place, anyway?" Not that she has actual fancy clothes. It's just nice to be prepared. And she can always wear armor—somehow, there aren't a lot of people stupid enough to pick a fight with her while she's geared up.

* * *

 "Um. I . . . don't ever actually wear anything other than robes, so my frame of reference may not be the best. It's a Sith bar; Sith in the academic sense of the word. I've seen researchers come in their field gear.  You won't have any trouble." He sort of owns a private booth, but that would probably be interpreted wrong.

* * *

 Armor it is, then. If only for her own peace of mind. "Copy that, my lord," she says with a wink.

**o.O.o**


	3. Chapter 3

Ravaszhi doesn't sense Serrin when he steps onto the skypad, so he assumes he's gotten here first.

It's not the most remarkable from the outside, but fairly hard to miss—the tall, slim entry corridor intentionally reminds observers of the pyramids' edifices on Korriban, and the holosigns' lettering is Old Sith, not aurebesh. And she doesn't seem like the type to get lost.

He waits outside anyway, just in case.

* * *

Crayce lopes along the walkway, checking the time without slowing her pace. She grimaces. Cutting it kinda close, here. But she makes it to the bar's front door only a few minutes past the hour, and spots Ravaszhi right away, looking a lot less bedraggled.

"Hey," she says, smiling. "Sorry I'm late. Got caught behind a wall of tourists. Didn't know Kaas City even _had_ those."

* * *

"I didn't either, but I guess all capital worlds get their fair share." Still jarring, though, to remember there are Imperial citizens who have never left their hometowns on their homeworlds lightyears away, who are only as aware of the war insomuch as the drafts and the taxes force them to be.

He gives their names to the attendant at the doors, and lets them be ushered inside. The combined wards and Sith privacy shields dissolve the city behind them into a soft, sleepy murmur. From the inside, _Purity_ looks one part library and one part sacred tomb, all in sleek dark surfaces with low, red-gold lights.

He hopes it's not too off-putting. "Most of the menu assumes a Massassi constitution, but there are a few low-level poisons for the researchers and people building their tolerance. I'll point them out."

* * *

Crayce scans the room, raising her eyebrow. Nice place. Not exactly cozy, because Sith are probably allergic to the concept, but . . . it's warm and dimly-lit and dry, and she doesn't get the sense that everyone inside is half an insult away from going into kill-everything-that-moves mode. Which is a step up from most of the bars she's been in lately.

She trails after Ravaszhi as they head deeper into the building. "Appreciate it. They file alcohol under the sorta-poisonous heading, or does that go without saying?" she jokes.

* * *

Ravaszhi grins. "Alcohol is like the caf of drinks here. You _can_ make it dangerous or fancy, but it's still just a standard drink. Here's us—" he gestures to the alcove as they come to a stop. The holo emitter on the table has already queued his usual and starts cycling through a selection of what looks like the human-palatable favorites.

* * *

"Ooh, nice," she says, taking a seat and poking at the holo, impressed. "They serve Corellian Crashes here? Wait, wow, they _do_ , and here I was thinkin' it was a Pubside-pub only thing." So what if she makes a habit of checking wherever she goes? Booze and nostalgia go so _well_ together.

* * *

"Can ask you something about when we met?" Ravaszhi asks, once they have their drinks.

* * *

"Sure," says Crayce, taking a sip and letting her eye drift shut for a minute as sense-memory punches through her. Jaxo, Dorne, Jorgan, Forex, Yuun . . . Yeah, it hurts, but . . . whatever. Still tastes like home.

* * *

Ravaszhi fidgets with his left hand for only a second. He doesn't remember, and it's not like there's anyone else who could possibly tell him. "What was I like?"

* * *

Crayce sets down her drink and glances up at him. He really doesn't remember. And that's . . . fuck, she doesn't know what it is.

She takes a breath. "You were a teenager," she says. "Kinda awkward, not real sure of yourself—you talked like you were being evaluated for proper Jedi-ness a lot of the time. But you were sweet as hell and you _cared_ , about the people we were helping, about everyone. Even about the medical droids—couple of 'em got damaged in transit and we were all set to write 'em off as a lost cause but you just . . . refused. You got them working again in a few hours and you just sat there and _grinned_ when they reactivated."

She taps her metal fingers against the side of her glass, a rhythmic _tink-tink-tink_. "Only knew you for a couple weeks," she says, quieter. "But . . . you did good. We—Havoc, I mean, my squad—we were all sorry to see you go. So were the locals. You were probably the best Jedi I ever served with."

* * *

Ravaszhi blinks rapidly as his throat tightens. "Was . . ." _Don't_ , he thinks at himself but—where's the harm? ". . . Was I— happy?"

* * *

Crayce is pretty sure her heart's about to crumble into a million itty-bitty pieces. She rests her right hand on the tabletop, palm-up in invitation. "I don't know," she says gently. "I think you were. And I think you can be, still. Whatever ugly shit you've been through . . . You'll get there."

* * *

Ravaszhi looks at Serrin's hand and then at her face. She looks . . . so _kind_ , and Ravaszhi's throat _aches_ and he has to breathe heavily through his nose to keep from breaking down.

He looks back at her hand. Premium grade prosthetic, probably. It's not like he'll hurt her.

Ravaszhi slowly slides his elbow forward and drops his hand and grips Serrin's as tight as he can, until his knuckles creak.

His chest hurts slightly less. "Thank you."

* * *

Crayce squeezes back. "I got you, kid," she says. "You're okay. You're gonna be okay."

* * *

Ravaszhi very very carefully extends his helpless gratitude. When he trusts himself to talk, he says: "I should probably reassure you that I'm not always this maudlin."

* * *

"I should probably warn _you_ that I'm usually kinda grouchy," Crayce says with a shrug. "But—I get it. Triggers are shitty."

* * *

Ravaszhi gets the instant and distinct feeling that he's missing something. She's not talking about firepower. ". . . Triggers?"

* * *

Crayce blinks. "Yeah. Uh. I don't know what you saw in my head that caused it but I'm sorry it . . ." She pauses, then says, "You had a panic attack right in front of me, kid. Looked an awful lot like something hit one of your triggers."

* * *

That's an interesting way of saying 'struck a nerve,' but then she is—was—Republic spec ops. Why not firearm imagery?

Ravaszhi takes his hand back and picks up his glass again. "That's alright," he says. It seems like he'd used to be better at handling his emotions, back when he'd been fighting the Sith and still—

Still a Jedi.

He takes another drink. "It's not . . . as dire it seems."

* * *

"Doesn't make it okay, though." She folds her arms, gaze dropping to the drink in front of her. "And it can take a while to calm down, after. You got every right to be 'maudlin.' So, y'know. No judgement here."

* * *

That . . . sounds suspiciously like she's calling what happened 'normal.' Which—

Ravaszhi chuckles. Maybe it is, for people who get sent to _Belsavis_. Still. "Thank you."

* * *

Crayce raises her glass with a lopsided smile. "PTSD Is Shit Club, now officially in session."

* * *

Ravaszhi looks at her blankly. "I'm sorry, you've lost me."

* * *

Crayce nearly drops the glass. She blinks at him. "You—oh. _Fuck_. Um." No wonder he was confused about _triggers_. She clears her throat and says, "Post-traumatic stress disorder. When you go through something so bad that your brain just cannot fucking deal with it. It starts . . . misfiring, basically, going into fight-or-flight mode when there's no danger, fucking with your sense of time and reality, with your memories . . ." She trails off. "Lotta soldiers get it. Abuse victims. Prisoners of war."

* * *

He. . . has . . . been all of those. "I—" Ravaszhi shuts his mouth. That's—almost exactly what he goes through, but that's not—he just can't _Focus_ enough to control his emotions, and he isn't strong enough in the Dark side to control them without the Focus and he . . . it . . . "That's a thing?" he asks weakly.

* * *

". . . Yeah," says Crayce. "Yeah, it's a thing. An injury. Just . . . with your brain."

* * *

"With your . . . brain." That—that would make sense, actually. That would . . . explain quite a lot. "I'd never heard of it before."

* * *

". . . So I'm guessing they don't talk a lot about mental health and shit in the Jedi. Or the Sith," Crayce says faintly. Which is not to say that the Republic military was much better, but . . . at least she had some idea of what was happening to her, after Belsavis.

* * *

"I—no. They don't," Ravaszhi says softly. "The Force . . . can cure anything, or almost anything, if the healer is strong enough and trained enough."

* * *

"In psychology or neurology or whatever the hell the mess up here would fall under?" Crayce says with a rueful smile, tapping the side of her head. "Brains are complicated."

* * *

Ravaszhi's mouth twitches. "I'll take your word for it. I was always better with machines. Are you . . . did you have medical training?"

* * *

"Enough to keep someone alive long enough for the real medics to take over," Crayce says dryly. "Nothing fancy or specialized."

* * *

Maybe a bit more than he'd had, or the same amount, then. Ravaszhi knows his way around a standard medkit fairly well, but...he's never been a healer. "So is this . . . common knowledge in the military? The PTSD?"

* * *

"Yeah. Recruiters didn't exactly come right out and go, hey, by the way, we're throwing you in the meat grinder and you might come out a little fucked up, but there are organizations for vets that do support group stuff, therapy, that kind of thing. Lot of Senate budget tantrums are over how much funding to give those organizations. Which is all kinds of fun to watch, by the way."

* * *

Yes, he'd caused quite a fuss with the Senate about some of that, once. But Ravaszhi hadn't quite realized . . . well, a lot of things, as it turns out. Ravaszhi stares at his drink for a long moment. "Oh," he says finally. He'll have to look in to that, later. "Anyway, thank you."

* * *

". . . You're welcome," says Crayce. "And—yeah. Uh. Seriously, if you ever need anything, just—just let me know, okay?"

* * *

Ravaszhi smiles. "Thank you. Actually—" he fishes his datapad out of the pouch on his belt—"May I have your frequency?"

* * *

"Sure." She snags the datapad, taps in her frequency, and scoots it back across the table. "Congrats, kid, you got a wanted criminal on speed-dial."

* * *

"Would you like a Sith Lord on yours?"

* * *

"They ever catch me and give you shit for being a _known associate_ , just tell 'em I was the worst date you ever had," Crayce says cheerfully, producing her own datapad and handing it over. "Works every time."

* * *

Ravaszhi laughs, and enters his frequency into her datapad. "You don't seem like you'd get caught often."

* * *

"Had a couple close calls, when I was just starting out in this business. Escaped every single time. My partner's less notorious, so it took the Pubs a while to catch onto the fact that the scary guy in a hand-knit sweater wandering around the precinct wasn't just a pissy ex-boyfriend." She grins wolfishly. "Their mistake."

* * *

"A hand knit sweater? Please tell me you knit it yourself."

* * *

Crayce leans in close, drops her voice. "Kiall knits. I just disentangle him when things get out of control."

* * *

Ravaszhi's laugh comes out too loud, and he smothers it in his drink. He manages to keep the bubbles to a minimum. "A noble cause." He imagines her doing it with the same long suffering look as when his sister daintily picks her way through all the HK parts that have accumulated in his room at the estate.

* * *

Crayce beams— _there we go._ Ravaszhi's laugh is like sunlight after way too long underground. She sits back and takes a hearty gulp of her drink. "So what do you do, when you're not wandering around the jungle or lurking in Sithy bars?"

* * *

Fair question. "I'm in Darth Ikoral's service. We—I've been studying the Temple for him while he's offworld. I think there's ancient warding technology inside, but I'm not sure yet."

* * *

"Huh. Been in there, once. Creepy place. Felt like it was trying to crawl into my skull," she says. She tilts her head to the side. "You lookin' for something specific? The warding tech? Or just general studying?"

* * *

"General studying, but the warding tech is the most interesting thing about it in. It looks bigger on the outside than makes sense when you go in, given how few chambers I've seen. I think there are . . . fields, or something like them, that close off parts of the Temple." He shrugs. "Or it's just creepy. You?"

* * *

"Great Hunt bounty," Crayce says. "Target ran in to hide and got himself possessed by some Sith spirit thing. Fun times." She heaves a sigh. "But—yeah, definitely, there's something weird about the layout. I kept getting . . . headaches . . ."

She stops, and frowns, and then looks at Ravaszhi. "Bring a droid with you, next time," she says. "And check that what you're _seeing_ matches what they're pickin' up on scanners. I kept thinking I saw doorways that weren't there—maybe they actually were." She taps her cybernetic eye and waggles her eyebrow.

* * *

"Good idea," Ravaszhi says, "I will." The HK is almost finished. The extra firepower wouldn't hurt either, as long as it isn't inclined to use it on him. "Are you onworld for the Great Hunt?"

* * *

"Ha, not so much. That all went down during last year's Hunt," says Crayce. Then she sighs, pulling a face. "Which was a complete disaster. I'm here meeting a potential client who wanted a face-to-face. Not sure what the job is yet." She shrugs. "But hey, least it's probably not a Republic sting op. I hope."

* * *

Ravaszhi smiles a little and nods at their surroundings. "Not likely, not on this planet." But now that's he's thinking about it . . . Ravaszhi's smile turns sad. The commitment to duty he'd witnessed in the SIS often peered with the Jedi; he really couldn't put something as reckless as embedding on a Sith holy world past them. "If you need a friendly during your contact, just give me a call," he says.

* * *

Crayce would laugh, but—he's serious. He's actually seriously offering to . . . "Thanks, kid," she says, a little hoarse. "You're good people. I don't think it's gonna end bad, otherwise I wouldn't've shown up at all, but—thank you."

And the last thing she wants is to drag Ravaszhi into the mess that is her professional life. She dug this hole her own damn self, she'll dig her own way out. Or shoot her way out. Whichever.

She takes another drink and shakes herself. "Goes for you, too, okay? I mean it. You need anything, ping me."

* * *

"I will," Ravaszhi promises. "Thank you."

**o.O.o**

_end_


End file.
